EU Behemoth or Open Skies?

“The winds of global competition are blowing strongly on the world’s economies. We are living through a massive shift in economic power, as the Asian economies led by China and India emerge as global manufacturers, service providers and traders with attractive offerings to the customers of the world.

These winds could power us to greater success, or they could destroy business and jobs at home if our economy is not well secured and supported by a government that understands the needs of enterprise. If we respond by creating the right conditions at home and by offering the right goods and services to these emerging markets, globalisation can be an opportunity for the UK rather than a threat.”

So writes John Redwood on ConservativeHome.com today.

Although it was not in his brief to do so, surely these points above raise the whole question of how the UK is to be best placed for its economy to meet the challenges of the 21st. Century and for our trade to be best equipped to take advantage of globalization and the immense opportunities it presents?

It also raises the question of whether the behemoth that is the EU Supertanker (so large and unwieldy that it will take years and years to halt and turn it around) is the best or right medium for the UK to take on the challenges John Redwood has identified.

Frankly this highly dirigiste, protectionist EU is so mid-20th. Century, built to answer the problems of a 1950s Europe still reeling from the effects of Hitler’s War that it is incapable of providing us with the right platform, the right business, economic and trading milieu for the fast-changing and fast-developing world that is globalisation, that we must begin to contemplate whether there are not other, better, more flexible 21st.Century solutions to the UK’s needs and ambitions.

For that purpose, I believe that the EU, in thrall as it is to narrow-minded protectionists like Sarkozy and Prodi, is about as relevant to the 21st. C. as is The Holy Roman Empire or the Byzantine Empire.

As well as looking, as this report rightly does, at the foreground, should not truly Radical Conservatives also be looking at the horizon?